Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/154

 that not one of these Legislators had ever seen a Parliament, and business was necessarily conducted somewhat at random. On my first visit to the Council an incident happened which suggested that a man of some European experience might be useful in the Legislature. There was a Bill on the notice paper introduced by Mr. Fellows, a leading lawyer, regulating the admission of barristers and establishing an Inn of Court and a Corporation of Benchers. I asked for a copy of the measure, and to my amazement found that it would exclude me and every other Catholic from the Bar of Victoria, as it was made a condition of admission to take the Oath of Supremacy, the identical oath which for more than a century English and Irish Catholics had refused to take. The exposure of the blunder, for it owed its origin to blundering not to bigotry, was fatal to the measure, which was withdrawn; but I fear the learned author never altogether forgave me my banter on the subject. There were only three or four Irish Catholics in the Chamber, but one of them, Mr. O'Shanassy, had attained a leading position, and it was said, not without wonder and shaking of the head in the city, that he must be a member of any Responsible Government created under the new constitution. The bulk of the population were Dissenters not unlike a Nonconformist congregation in England, intelligent and alert, but often filled to the lips with prejudice. They had never seen, as indeed who had seen, a Papist exercising supreme authority, and they were perturbed by the perils of so unaccustomed a spectacle.

Geelong was at that time the angry rival of Melbourne. The question which of them should be the capital of Victoria seemed to the Westerns still unsettled, though to others it was plain that Melbourne had won the race. If the question were still open Geelong had conspicuous claims. Nature seemed to have framed Corio Bay for the seat of a great city. The semicircle of hills gently sloping to the water, the deep, secure anchorage, the Barwon behind supplying fresh water, the Barabool Hills furnishing corn, wine, and fruit: behold the essential conditions of success. My friends in this charming little town invited me to a public dinner, at which I had a farther opportunity of developing my opinions.